How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 22, 2014]

[sith_happened]

If you thought you were getting out of Anakin Kriffing Skywalker's class without an examination, you were sadly, sadly mistaken. "There are four essay questions," he said, passing out the papers, "and then one practical examination question. Please don't hurt yourself too badly. I don't want to have to explain it to your parents, and the paperwork for this sort of thing is completely ridiculous."

He glanced up when he was finished passing everything out. "You have been an adequate group of students when you bother to listen. You will probably not die horribly."

...and thank you, Anakin.

Comments

Re: Question 2

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

If TV is anything to go by, I'll wait for an external crisis to ensue, and then lead the two negotiators on a hijinks-filled adventure wherein they need to set aside their differences and work together to survive. Once the crisis is over, we'll all look back on the events as a parable about the benefits of working together instead of against each other, and the negotiations will become easy.

Of course, it doesn't work like that in real life.

If neither side is being reasonable, I'll try some conventional tactics like asking them each to make some small good-faith concessions as a starting point, or finding a set of facts that they can all agree on which can then be used as a foundation for the discussion, or asking them to try to put themselves in the others' shoes, or taking time-outs every time they start yelling at each other.

If those things don't work, I'll try some unconventional tactics like yelling and calling them idiots, or locking us all in a room without food or water until they come up with an agreement, or giving them gold stars each time they're sane and rational and making them sit in a time-out chair if they're not.

If all else fails, I'll come up with a reasonable solution on my own and call in some heavy firepower to help enforce it.